The most radioactive spot in New York City can also fix your muffler
atlasobscura.com
atlasobscura.com
As a nuclear engineer, I find the use of "highly radioactive" to be an overstatement. Thorium and other TENORM [1] (and their secular equilibrium products) are among the lowest activity kind of radioactive thing there is. Otherwise, it would have all decayed away billions of years ago.
More radioactive = less stable = short half-life
Less radioactive = more stable = longer half-life
[1] https://www.epa.gov/radiation/technologically-enhanced-natur...
Anyway, many decades later I'm still here to tell the story (big bad Thorium hasn't gotten me yet). :-)
Thorium coated gas lamps were similar. The fragile ash is what made the lamp work - it glowed brightly when heated by a gas flame.
But if you touch it, it crumbles to dust. Thorium dust. Ready to breathe in.
Not nice nor recommended—hence my earlier comment about the use of masks whilst cleaning up the remains of broken thoriated tungsten filaments. Of course, a child of five or younger doesn't understand that when he/she sticks a finger on a gas mantle, nor I'd suggest would parents back then.
As a young child, I was lots of trouble, sticking knives and forks into power sockets, eating little bags of washing 'blue' and excreting a blue/green mess for days, eating dog excreta from the street and mother rushing me to hospital out of fright, eating poisoned flowers containing scopolamine and so on, so destroying gas mantles wasn't an unusual occurrence.
Back then, gas lighting was an important backup because there was a great deal of industrial trouble with power station and electricity workers and rolling strikes and blackouts were often a nightly occurrence, they'd occur just at the most inconvenient time of the evening, so gas lighting usage was commonplace. Trouble was I'd somehow climb up on a chair or table and reach up to the gaslight fitting on the wall and touch and break the mantle, knowing I did something wrong I didn't tell my parents. Come the blackout there was no light without a lot of scrambling about with flashlights whilst a new one was fitted.
Another time I recall eating the stigma or stamen of I think a Calla lily and it burned my mouth out, I screamed so loudly in pain my mother came rushing out of the house in a panic. Again, I'd been told previously to keep away from it, but oh no the temptation was just irresistible.
They say modern cleanliness has led to kids having undeveloped immune systems leading to asthma, etc. and my mother kept things spotless but she lost the battle with me. The poor woman had a never-ending job to keep me clean as mud pies, rubbish, junk piles and used and leaking batteries became my favored toys.
By the time I was six I'd grown out of it and was pretty good and actually kept out of trouble until 12 or 13. But old habits die hard and it's a miracle how I survived the next few years. I now shudder whenever I think of the dangerous antics I got up to.
I consider myself a rather timid person when it comes to puting my body in harm's way, in fact I consider myself to be considerably less adventurous than were some of my schoolmates. It's just that sometimes nasty things happened unexpectedly without any intention of me acting in a bravado way or being deliberately adventurous. Nearly electrocuting myself and being paralyzed and unable to move for nearly a half hour, and being trapped on top of a waterfall with a 300/400 foot drop below is simply terrifying to a 13-14 year-old—or at any rate it certainly was so for me. There are other similar instances but I'll not press the point.
Back when I was a kid society wasn't anywhere near as risk averse as it is today. In the 1950s—'60s collective memory of WWII was still raw and vivid with the experience of millions killed—and almost every kid I knew had a father who'd been in the War. Thus when kids got into dangerous scrapes and actually survived there was little or no panic unlike the noise and kerfuffles one sees regularly these days. The attitude was 'you shouldn't have done something that stupid in the first place especially so since you were warned previously against doing it, now you should have learned from the experience'. End of story.
Although the reasons for why weren't often overtly stated, the attitude was 'kid, you've been in a scrape so stop whining about it.' In hindsight, that harshish attitude was not to be unexpected, after all, the kid's troubles usually paled into insignificance when compared with the horrific events that many parents had recently experienced during the War, (such experiences however were rarely discussed with us kids, nevertheless we learned much about the horrors of them through some form of nonverbal osmosis).
Essentially, the attitude was that kids must develop resilience to life's knocks or not survive—and I say that as one who had an overprotective but well-meaning mother who often tried to intervene in what I was doing (that's if she knew about it).
I can't speak for others but I see nothing glorious about my younger days, nor was it anything to be especially proud of; the facts are that it was just the same plain ordinary existence as experienced by many other kids of my age. That said, it was nevertheless a very different and harder existence to that which most kids experience these days. Moreover, it's an experience I'm very glad to have lived through (I'd truly hate to be a kid nowadays).
I am almost certain why people (as you say) reminisce so is because many of us of a certain vintage are horrified at what we see this overly risk averse society has done to lower average resilience of our kids. Frankly, it's been truly alarming to watch the downwards slide.
Heaven help us if Western countries ever got involved in another war à la WWII, we'd be totally stuffed and unable to function let alone able to respond adequately. Given the unfolding tragedy in Ukraine that's not totally out of the bounds of possability. Of course, one hopes that such a horrible calamity never eventuates.
It's clear to me that my parents' generation—that of the Great Depression and WWII—had substantially greater stamina and resilience than my babyboomer generation. As my generation has eventually awoken to and become aware of this fact through observing the same continuing slide downward in latter generations as in their own—and we boomers are in an excellent position to do just that—then it's become clear that as a society we've a problem that we ought to be worried about. To my mind, there's little doubt that those reminiscences are muffled cries for us to do something about the matter before it's too late. (When one sees instances of kids who are too frightened to leave their home then one doesn't have to be told that there's a problem.)
Likely you think I'm overstating my case, perhaps so. But then, whilst my opinion comes from lived experience, it nevertheless counts for little in the wider scheme of things. If you want a greater authority who has carefully researched the matter then I'd refer you to Tom Brokaw and his excellent book on the subject titled The Greatest Generation:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Greatest_Generation_(boo...
https://www.bookbrowse.com/reviews/index.cfm/book_number/128...
They have an entire series on gas lighting that's very good. It's an excellent channel, I highly recommend it.
Incidentally, as I write, I can see an historic 100TH vacuum tube in a box on a shelf, it uses a thoriated tungsten filament: http://www.r-type.org/exhib/aaq0385.htm. I've no qualms about being near it but if it got broken then I'd take care to clean the mess up and dispose of it carefully, I'd even use an N90 mask whilst sweeping the bits up (but then I've always used masks in industrial/dusty environments—even before COVID).
The amount of extra radiation the workers receive seems quite low compared to the rest of the population [1], maybe about the same as living in Denver, CO?
From 2012:
https://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20121113/bushwick/epa-start...
> The level of radiation for a worker would fall at 120 millirem (the unit used to measure radiation's effect on the human body) per year, 20 percent more than the recommended 100 millirem per year for an average person.
> “A cleanup is clearly warranted,” Brenner said. "But I can see why it might not be considered a super-high priority situation.”
> A worker at Primo Auto Body, for instance, would raise his chance of contracting fatal cancer by 1 in 25,000, according to the information available.
From 2013 https://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20131022/bushwick/businesse...:
> The agency is finishing construction of thick raised concrete and lead floors in both Terra Nova and its neighbor, Primo Auto Body Shop, to protect workers from the radiation.
> "It's been a nightmare," said Silvio Hernandez, the owner of Terra Nova, which has a storage facility and office at the site. "We were out of business for three weeks."
> The owner of Primo Auto Body said the construction had cost him significant business since only part of his space was functional.
> ...
> The shielding, which Daly said should be completed in December, has been to guard against gamma radiation, levels of which Daly said were not high enough to spur immediate health problems but were "high enough to do something" at the two businesses.
> The EPA also tested a nearby daycare center and school but found no heightened radiation at those sites, Daly said.
[1] https://www.epa.gov/radiation/radiation-sources-and-doses
Occupational standards are done on a linear-no-threshold basis that assumes all radiation exposure increases the risk of cancer, despite areas of high background radiation often having comparable or even lower cancer incidence. It makes sense that you don't let employers say 'no, we made him cancer resistant with that exposure!' But, it leads to stuff like this.
1mSv is the limit for annual non-radiation worker occupational exposure, but that's because it's pretty feasible to set a really low number threshold, have almost no one reach those levels, and deal with exceptions as they come. Easy, from OSHA/EPA standards, but obviously not for these guys.
Also, EPA figures suggest 6mSv annually, and I remember learning 3mSv. In any case, it's significantly less radiation than you get from smoking, which I find not to be too uncommon where I take my cars.
The address is wrong though it is along the BQE in Woodside by St. Michael's Cemetery.
I know you're joking but just wanted to add that I measured it.
Fun fact: right behind that garage is Nowadays. Local lore has it that EPA layed down metal plates and dirt over that and kids party over that.
https://twitter.com/nowadaysnyc
-- epa background --
The Wolff-Alport Chemical Company Superfund site is located 1125 to 1139 Irving Avenue and 1514 Cooper Avenue in Ridgewood, Queens, New York, which borders Bushwick, Brooklyn New York. The adjacent streets, sidewalks, sewers, and commercial and residential properties where radiological contaminants have migrated or have the potential to migrate in the future are also included as part of this site. This nearly triangular area covers approximately 0.75 acres and is bound by Irving Avenue to the southwest, Cooper Avenue to the northwest, and a former cabinet manufacturing facility to the east. At present, the property is covered, primarily, with connecting structures, except for a former rail spur along its edge, which is an unpaved area where tracks are no longer present and is currently used for automobile storage. The on-site buildings contain a delicatessen/grocery, office space, residential apartments, several auto-repair shops, and warehousing space.
The Wolff-Alport Chemical Company operated at the site from the early 1920s until 1954, importing monazite sand from the then so-called Belgian Congo and extracting rare earth metals from the material. Monazite contains approximately 6-8% thorium. Until 1947, the Wolff-Alport Chemical Company disposed of the thorium waste from monazite sand processing in the sewer and possibly by burying the waste on the property. Recent EPA investigations have confirmed that residual contamination still exists on-site and in or around the sewer lines downstream of the facility.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) first notified the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (NYC DOHMH), New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYS DEC), and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of the potential for radiological contamination at the site in September 1987. EPA and NYC DOHMH conducted a preliminary radiological survey in February 1988, which confirmed the presence of radiological contamination, but concluded that the levels were below the regulatory limits at the time and, therefore, did not pose a risk to human health.
The New York City Department of Design and Construction (NYC DDC) conducted a multi-phased investigation of the site between July 2009 and March 2010, using funds from EPA’s Brownfields program. This investigation confirmed the presence of radiological contamination both on-site and in the sewer system adjacent to the site. The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) completed a health consultation in February 2012 and concluded there were potential health risks to on-site workers and pedestrians who frequently use the sidewalks of Irving Avenue near the site due to the radiological contamination.
EPA added the site to the National Priorities List (NPL) in May 2014.
Top of Page What Has Been Done to Clean Up the Site?
EPA completed gamma radiation surveys, conducted a shielding pilot study, and, as a temporary protective measure, installed concrete, lead, and steel shielding inside three of the on-site businesses and over the adjacent Irving Avenue sidewalk between October 2012 and April 2014. A layer of crushed rock was also placed as shielding over the former railroad spur portion of the site. EPA also installed a radon mitigation system, which is used to reduce radon in buildings, within one of the on-site businesses where radon concentrations exceeded EPA’s standard.
Through a gamma radiation survey of the area surrounding the site within a one-half mile radius, EPA, New York State Department of Health (NYS DOH), and NYCDOHMH found that there was no exposure to the surrounding community from radiation located on-site.
After listing the site on the NPL, EPA investigated the site to determine the nature and extent of contamination and identify and evaluate cleanup alternatives. EPA collected soil samples, conducted gamma radiation surveys, installed groundwater monitoring wells, investigated a sewer system, sampled sediment from Newtown Creek, and tested for radon at a nearby school and daycare center.
EPA repaired the damaged steel shielding on the sidewalk along Irving Avenue in November 2021 to prevent the risk of a slip and fall and limit radiation exposure.
Top of Page What Is the Current Site Status?
EPA finalized a cleanup plan, documented in a Record of Decision (ROD) in September 2017. The plan calls for relocating all tenants on the site, demolishing all buildings, digging up and removing contaminated soil and sewer sediment, jet cleaning, and disposing all contaminated soil, sediment, and building materials at an off-site facility. EPA completed the engineering design for the building demolition in September 2018 and is currently working on tenant relocation and building demolition activities.
Although EPA took immediate actions at the Wolff-Alport Chemical Company Superfund site to protect commercial and residential tenants in the short term, based upon the results of a risk assessment, the only viable way to protect people in the long term is to vacate certain buildings permanently. This is the only option that will allow EPA to proceed with the demolition of the radiologically-contaminated buildings and the cleanup of the radiologically-contaminated soil underlying the buildings as called for in EPA’s Record of Decision from September 2017.
Since 2017, EPA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), who will be relocating the tenants on behalf of EPA, have, on many occasions, engaged with property owners and tenants at the site. EPA and USACE have encouraged tenants to complete the forms necessary to determine their eligibility for relocation assistance benefits. Additionally, EPA has requested that property owners keep their space vacant following tenant relocations and grant EPA access to begin building demolition work.
The engineering design for the soil removal portion of the cleanup is currently underway. A pre-design investigation (PDI) to further identify the extent of soil contamination is anticipated to begin in summer 2022.
New York City, which owns the sewers, streets, and sidewalks, agreed to perform the engineering design for the soil removal beneath the streets and sidewalks and the cleanup of the impacted portions of the sewer system. It is anticipated that a PDI will begin in summer 2022.
> After scientists successfully killed cancer cells with radium in early experiments in Europe, the demand for the element soared.
And it's not like that approach was unusual. I'm old enough to remember folks used to just pour old paint and motor oil into the ground in their backyards.
If even one worker gets cancer from it then the math likely works out (nvm the suffering).
This is the best practice with asbestos for instance.
If you don't know where the bomb is, you can't remove it. However, if you know where soil/ground/earth is polluted, it is getting cleaned up. At least in my part of Europe. Yes, it might take a few years but it happens.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramsar,_Mazandaran#Radioactivi...